JAN-A-3
TURNING FURTHER SOUTH TOWARD
FERNANDINO BEACH FLORIDA AND CUMBERLAND ISLAND
FOR THE RENDEZVOUS AND HOG HUNT
Jan. 4—5, 2002
LEARN OF A REAL DISASTER WHICH DERAILS GENE MOORE,
A POTENTIAL PROBLEM FOR REG,
AND THE HAMPTON INN DIRECTS US TO HUDDLE HOUSE
WHERE A PENDING PROBLEM BEGINS FOR ME
You would not believe how much we have packed away for the cuisine for the Cumberland Hunt. I had busted the bank at volume-selling Costco, packing away more vittles than I had for the whole of the Colorado elk hunt with more people for a longer time. The menu planning was predicated on the ten hungry hunters for whom I had sent in the reservations. Remember that only five are allowed in a group, and I have finessed this several years running by declaring two groups with another team leader, usually Craig, as the other, and listed both of our two teams as “Retained Rights” under Nancy’s Fancy, which puts us in the privileged position of not being able to be refused. The enabling act that set up Cumberland island as a wilderness National Park (preventing it from being turned into the realtors speculative landfall of a Hilton Head) is that “Hunting Must be Permitted.” Given this essential part of the unique NPS here, there are forces that have wanted to abolish the hunts who are proposing such legislation to restrict and make it so inconvenient as to be impossible, and the “window” for this and future hunts is closing fast. So, there can be no “no shows”.
PROBLEMS WIT H BOTH “DONALDS”
Two of my pre-registrants never registered—my son Donald, who may not understand the “once or twice more in a lifetime” part of this opportunity, and Don King, whom I haves sent multiple letters, innumerable phone messages, emails and a fax since the last time I talked with him on Thanksgiving Day. He would be missing the opening day of PA deer season fort the first time in his adult life, telling his doctors at Hershey Medical Center that it was “OK to miss the deer hunt, but he was having the bone marrow transplant in order to get in good shape for the Cumberland Island hog hunt, which could not be missed.” It was two years ago that he got as far as Hilton Head coming to Cumberland Island in January before the GI bleeding that had been suspicious during the previous December 1 PA deer opening day got to him, and he was hospitalized there where I drove the Bronco to visit him as he had a bowel resection for a lymphoma discovered at that time. Since I have not heard from him despite my best efforts, through ex-son-in-law Keith Bair, and through the Gibbses as well as the litany of attempts listed above, I have some serious concerns for Don King and his whereabouts and well-being. So, this should b e considered disaster number one.
THE THIRD TRY FOR THE ELWELL GUIDES
I listed Russell and Christian Elwell, and sent them the data in August, which Russ forgot, or field, and that lost the opportunity for the second consecutive year, despite my repeated attempts to make sure that they did not miss this chance again. When I visited in Mayville last week, I carefully listed all their names and data for next year’s applications (which will be even more severely restricted) and because of their repeated swings and misses, I will move them up on the waiting list of the “wannabes.”
PREVIOUS
PROBLEMS
WITH COORDINATNG THE COLORADO COHORT
IN THE CUMBERLAND HUNT
And, now, the Denver contingent. The hog hunt may be Reg’s favoritemost thing since I had introduced him to it, and both of us have been trying to get him and Gene Moore into it, this being the third year running. We reserved a place for both of them for the 2000 hunt, and both were grounded by an unreasonable decree from the Denver General Hospital administrators: No One leaves during the Y2K disaster that will have everything melted down. This, as we know, was a non-event, so that wasted two acceptances (there are NO substitutes allowed, and “standbys” were discontinued the first year I was here with Donald.
Last year, all was set. Gene called me as I was visiting Donald before coming to Cumberland, and said that Sarah had given him an ultimatum that he was not to go on the hog hunt with her fiftieth birthday pending, even though we had made special arrangements to return him early enough to be there to celebrate it with her. No way. Even Sarah called me to say she had given her permission to have Gene attend this year, as a long pent-up past-due hog hunt he had been talking about for some time.
Now, the news. I had emailed Reg and Gene and called each but got no reply, except that they had got their GA licenses by phone, and the arrangements about where to pick them up and when were pending. This year, it would be a Sure Thing.
The window may have become restricted for most of us and abolished for others, some by legislative whim toward a malevolent agenda, and some by seemingly pre-ordained disasters that sneak up on the hunt—and on life, in all the best laid plans for either.
THE DISASTER FOR GENE FOR 2002
I finally reached Sarah from Atlanta the night before driving down to Fernandino Beach. Gene would not be coming, not because he did not want to nor that he had not packed up rifle and equipment, all of it ready, but because of a real disaster that had him waking up in a cold sweat with a scenario based in a surreal disaster of the most gruesome kind. The Moores had all gone up to Steamboat for the New Year, with their boys Hunter and Peter along. Hunter’s good friend Nathan, captain of the lacrosse team, and Eric, a classmate, son of a prominent attorney who had helped him through a prior DUI problem, and some friends back in Denver were planning a party for the pre-New Year’s weekend when everyone was back from school. Three girls and three guys piled into fathers Land Rover Discovery after several beers, and apparently were unbelted, as the girls were on the guys’ laps, when the sturdy SUV went airborne on York in Denver at over 70 mph. Nate was killed in the crash, and driver Eric, of course, was the only one who got away with only scratches. Several have serious injuries like basilar skull fractures in coma on ventilators, and the one girl who is a daughter of a woman who had been Sarah’s medical school classmate, had multiple bowel perfs and a missed bladder perf they found only a few days later when she was septic. She looks precarious on a ventilator transferred from the University of Colorado while the others were at DG. Eric would be let out of jail for vehicular homicide later, his life as smashed as any other, if all the others do come through. So, Gene woke up wondering what it would be like if a couple of these kids died while he was on his (even if long-planned, special) hog hunt in Cumberland. His is a very legitimate excuse, but the kind for which the NPS and legislative types do not pre-program contingencies as they work to abolish a unique hunt in a National Park.
AND NOW, REG
Reg finally called me as I was driving to Fernandino Beach, while Chris Swartz was sitting next to me spitting tobacco as he made one of not less than one hundred cell phone calls while seated next to me. Reg was in Salt Lake City, with a plane ticket and a Lucy Ferguson reservation for the following morning, with a big problem in between. The “shoot-the-moon” real estate development scheme Reg had investe4d in as a way of paying off his med school loans and get a fast-start retirement scheme together has come unglued. Most “too good to be true” get-rich-quick schemes, of course, are. But this one had come close to the edge before and got rescued on the bubble that would be the winter Olympic games for which these condo units were built to house the crowds and then be sold as ski resorts afterwards. I know about the first several refinancing efforts, but the last one had the investor take over in a major way and he was in the World Trade Center on September 11. So, Reg is sitting in foreclosure and in bankruptcy hearings and is not likely to escape to come to hunt hogs on Cumberland—closer to his heart and lifestyle than big business deals with slick financiers with their hands in your pockets. C’est la Vie; C’est la Guerre.
AND NOW—FOR ME, AND MY OWN PERSONAL
GUT-FELT DISASTER
So, that leaves most of us poor working stiffs, still dependent on what we do for a living, with an occasional foray back into our hunter/gatherer modes to gather our pork chops. Now for a tale of two pork chops.
Chris Swartz, Paul Gibbs son-in-law, was riding with me in the Bronco as Paul was riding with his son Chris who had wanted to talk about his job anxiety---he is the sole surviving employee of an Atlanta dot.com, working out of his home. Chris Swartz lives and dies with a cell phone in his ear, calling around for a German floor-covering company to plan their big trade show “Surfaces” in Las Vegas. He regaled me with his opinions that this is all bullshit about retained rights leases expiring since if you had money enough like Carnegies, you made your own laws and ignored the ones you did not like. I pointed out that there are heirs of the Carnegies of quite modest means who even have to work, and he said that was “Bullshit,” since money like that or the Woodruff’s doesn’t disappear, as he knows of a cousin of the Woodruff’s who is 40, living in a ten million dollar house, one of several, commutes by helicopter and has never worked a day in his life. I asked him if he had heard of the advent of the graduated income tax and inheritance taxes, and he pointed out that was another misconception, since really rich people never paid taxes either. So, I learned a lot.
He used my cell phone to call the next car, and I pointed out that if I ever was to be one of those rich people he seemed to envy, I could not pay a long distance charge twice to call the vehicle behind us, and he immediately called AT&T to say he guaranteed that he would get me a better plan. He was talking to an agent for my phone as I was telling him I did not want his 3,000 minute weekday 3,000 minute weekend anywhere anytime service, since I would never use 10% of those minutes, planned to park mine with my 14-year old Bronco and wander out of cell phone range for the next month in Philippines and Malawi, and did not want to be stuck to the phone as he seemed to be even if it was free. We were in very rural Georgia pulp wood country and we ran out of cells frequently enough that few of these calls were completed, including the one in which he was planning to rearrange my coverage plan. But he did call several motels to ask their rates, and add, “No, Buddy, I mean your BEST rate—not that.” He had negotiated several and we had stopped several times until we backed up to the Hampton Inn—not the new Hampton Suites—where a fellow named Marlin checked the four of us into two double rooms, ands recommended two places to eat.
On the way to Baxter’s, he called his Buddy Marlin, twice again, asking for directions and to hang in there as we made each turn until we were there. One look around showed that it was a dining spot a bit more elegant than we hog hunters needed, so he called Marlin at the Hampton back again to get directions to the Huddle House, a diner that served all meals, breakfast included, at all hours. I had the pork chops dinner, a story that will come back to haunt the rest of my hunt for pork chops this year, again and again.
So, our voyage to the Cumberland Hog Hunt of 2002 is down to six hunters and two temporary tourists who will leave on Monday morning with the one vehicle. I have just discovered that this means I will be taking Paul Gibbs to the Jacksonville Airport to fly to Atlanta, and will be carrying not only his stuff but also the two Chris’s stuff—including a steamer trunk that will probably have to be lashed on the roof rack, on to Gainesville, and then back to Atlanta, which will be my interval stop enroute home to Derwood for what looks like it should be a very busy day in preparation for still more travel later.